That Carolina Fella
by Gojirob
Summary: While on duty in Vietnam, Forrest and friends rescue a man who was never supposed to be there, and Forrest finds much common ground with this man. A crossover, revealed at the end.


That Carolina Fella

by Rob Morris

_Now, I saw a lot of things in Vietnam. Some I've like as not told you of, and some I'd just as soon never speak of, but there's so many things, I may never remember them all. But this ain't one of those. This is one I remember, largely in joy, but it wasn't all joyful._

_Lieutenant Dan led me and Bubba and all the rest on a raid, and it was a successful raid. One soldier, a United States Marine, was passing over Vietnam with his platoon going from somewhere else to back home. They was never supposed to be in-country. The plane put down when it took fire. This man was sent off to get help, but he was the one they needed to rescue. Turns out, we took him back just before he was to be sent up North, where the Lieutenant and Bubba said there was a hotel you never wanted to go to. Ever._

_Well, not only did we get our man, but the enemy commander who had captured him, and was trying his best to hurt him-just because he could, I guess. Lieutenant Dan said there was to be some justice, and it was not to be spoken of. He didn't sound too proud of this, and Bubba wondered if we wasn't going the same way the enemy had, when he had hurt our soldier. But he didn't say this too forcefully, like he felt he had to say it but wasn't sure he meaned it._

_The soldier's Gunnery Sergeant was there, set to have his man back, but he spoke a lot like Lieutenant Dan does about me._

"Lieutenant, for once he did all the right things, and we had to be in a place where that chucklehead still gets taken first thing. I don't know whether to hug the stupe or punch him in the nose!"

"Gunnery Sergeant, I know the feeling. But don't be too hard on him. He survived out there longer than a man should before they got him, and he held out against their breaking like no man I've ever seen. A tribute to you, and that's no faint praise."

"Just make sure, sir, that I don't get to train anything on Victor Charles over there."

"That's being arranged for, Gunnery Sergeant. This is the field. We take care of things."

_The captured man came out of the tent we set him up in, looking bruised but alive and happy despite what he had seen, and he had seen a lot. He was a very friendly man, and when Bubba talked his ear off about shrimping, he listened, even if I could tell he didn't know from it, being from North Carolina, and not a coastal area neither. I asked him about North Carolina, and he said it was a fine state, and he asked me about Alabama, and I said it was a fine state, and we both agreed it was great that we both came from such fine states. We didn't need to talk much. It was like me and this man was made so much the same, it was all just understood. That's good, because I really never liked not understanding. Lieutenant Dan pointed his gun at the enemy commander, and he looked like he meant business._

"Private, do you have anything to say to this-man-before we deal with him?"

_The man looked over the captured enemy commander, now all beaten down like he had been, and shook his head._

"Lieutenant, Sir? Gunnery Sergeant? I will say words to this man, but I first ask that in the name of all decency, we give him over to proper military authorities. This here ain't right, sirs. It ain't right at all."

_Both Lieutenant Dan and the Marine Sergeant were struck silent as though their mouths had been sewn shut by the man's request. The Lieutenant said later on he never heard all that many appeals to what was decent in that place, especially from a man who had been so wronged. The enemy commander, who spoke fair to middling English, gave the Marine Private a hateful glare._

"Why would you spare me? This is war! War requires monsters, and I feel my only crime is staying in one place too long trying to be a perfect enough monster to finally show you that a man can be broken! Will nothing ever wipe the eternal grin from your face?"

_Now, it was the Gunnery Sergeant who smiled, and looked at the enemy commander, or I guess now he was just a POW._

"I can honestly say, from deep personal experience, pal : When it comes to wiping that grin off, you got nothing, because there is nothing that can do it! I was his DI, back in Basic. There is nothing. Period."

"But why would he spare me? In the name of a just war, I took him and had him destroyed over and over again. If I had a man as cruel as I had been to him in my grasp, the end would be swift!"

_Lieutenant Dan would go on record as saying the Marine Private was the strangest man he ever met, even to myself, and he would never forget what he told his capturer. I'm not like to, either, and I think Bubba might've done the same, if he had stayed with us._

"Well, that would be your choice, sir, and I can say I don't much like it. But I can see when a man is not a monster, even when he says that's what he is. I saw that you cared for your men while we was out there, and held the rescue team off on your own when they came for me, so they could get away. It wasn't your job to care for me, sir. It was your job to care for your men, and I saw that you did just that. Like you say, this is a war, and I'm sad as all get-out to say it, but that makes us enemies. I can say you shouldn't do the things you did to anybody, but Privates Gump and Blue tell me war is just the ugliest thing ever, and a lot of small ugly things build inside of it. So for speaking to save your life here, sir, I ask only that you stop trying to be one of those small ugly things."

_I could tell that neither Lieutenant Dan nor the Gunnery Sergeant had their minds changed by these words, and as for me, I couldn't think of anything to say that the Marine Private hadn't done already. Like I said, we was something alike in a lot of ways. So it was Bubba found the words._

"Lieutenant Taylor? It was this man who suffered. He's asked us to spare our enemy, in the name of decency. How can we not respect his wishes?"

_Bubba told me, just before the fight in which we lost him, that if he did not stop this execution, he would have had to answer to it before God, and his local preacher, who he feared even more than God. The Gunnery Sergeant didn't punch his rescued man, but he didn't hug him, neither._

"You never stop, do you? You just never stop being-You."

"Well, you have to admit, Gunnery Sergeant-stopping being me would be awfully hard, being as I am me. I think."

_They left to go back to the world. I heard that the Private tried to volunteer to stay in-country, feelin it was what he should do, but the Marine Corps felt like, if he were killed here after such a rescue before, it would make things look bad for them. In fact, someone said to me they made sure no one from that camp got the orders to come here, and just never spoke of why. Now one day much later on, when I was running through America, I passed through this man's little town in North Carolina, and as I drank a cold soda at his filling station, he asked me how I was, and I said I was fine, and I asked him how he was, and he said he was fine, and like I said, we just understood each other. He gave me the soda for free, which was nice._

_That's all I got to say about Private First Class Gomer Pyle, United States Marine Corps._


End file.
